by P A Vasey
I could sense the alien taking with Adam; it’s malevolence washing over him like a tidal wave. I could feel the conflict going on in his mind. The alien’s control was being tested, but Adam was losing. Any moment now he would continue his killing spree and there was nothing I could do. I struggled to get to my feet, but my ears were still ringing and I had vertigo. My head started to throb, and my eyes felt dirty and gritty. I coughed grimy grey sputum on the ruined floor.
The fire alarms suddenly went quiet and the strobe lighting shut down, replaced by a dim red emergency light. I could hear the hoarse howling of injured people. I managed to get to my feet and as I was about four yards away I started shuffling towards him. Pain lanced up from my knee to my hip and I twisted into the wall, putting a hand out for support. There was a searing burst of agony when I put weight on my leg, and black mists swirled at the edges of my mind warning me that oblivion was near if I didn’t take notice.
Adam looked at me, and his searing emerald eyes bored into mine. I could feel the crescendo of anger coming from the alien. Anger, and now hate. Uncontrolled hate, as if the alien had just learned a new emotion, and was trying it out. Adam’s defences were folding, his mental walls collapsing, and his ability to hold off the alien failing fast.
I coughed into my sleeve, and a shower of blood appeared, along with a burning pain from my trachea. Adam still hadn’t moved, but I was certain now that the phosphorescence was less intense. I was now within a few feet of him so I tentatively reached out and touched his arm, then found his hand and curled my fingers around his and squeezed. He looked down at me and his eyes were now blue.
“Kate,” he said. “Help me.”
My vision blurred into his, and I saw him looking down at my dusty, blooded face. But then my face morphed into that of his wife, Cora Benedict. I could see her raven hair splayed over the floor, her once-beautiful face, blooded and bruised, lifeless and violated.
“What have I done?” he asked, in a plaintive voice that broke my heart.
I felt my eyes stinging and he reached out and touched my cheek. There was a vertiginous light-headedness, and I was back standing in the Chicago ER, the moment when my world collapsed. When light became darkness and endless pain followed like rolling waves on a beach. The howling I had made was so raw and desolate that patients in the other booths had flocked to me with eyes wet with tears. The months afterwards in which had cried myself to sleep so many times, crying as if the ferocity might bring her back, as if I could eradicate the memories by sheer grief. The vision cleared, and I was back staring into his eyes. I realised that it didn’t bother me that this thing facing me, this shell, was not organic or human. Inside was the soul of a human being. A human denied the aspirations, dreams and challenges of life, denied a choice in who he was or what he was destined to do or be. A human who, in the depths of despair and hopelessness, was asking for help.
I indicated with my head down the corridor towards the elevator. “Come with me. I’ll help you. I won’t let you down.”
I could see Hubert watching me, his walkie-talkie still glued to his ear. There were a half dozen or so FBI agents flanking Hubert, guns trained on us, watching intently. My leg suddenly gave way, and Adam caught me and stopped me falling. He draped my arm around his waist and propped me up so that we could walk together. I looked up and gave him a watery smile. His lip twitched and I thought he nodded. We were almost halfway to the elevator when he stopped and cocked his head at an angle in a questioning posture, as if he was listening to something outside the range of human hearing.
“What is it?” I said. “We’re nearly there.”
Something is not right.
“What do you mean?”
But something was happening. Hubert was talking non-stop into his walkie-talkie, and the FBI agents were slowly backing off, taking cover in the elevator. A couple of them were looking upwards and around, and also listening to something. I couldn’t make out anything over the sound of the sprinklers and my tinnitus from the bombs, but I was worried. Then all the FBI agents dived for the ground and covered their heads with their arms. Hubert threw down his radio and waved his hands at me, pointing at the ground in a gesture I took to understand as take cover. I glanced up at Adam, who continued to stare at the roof, head cocked, listening. Suddenly he grabbed my arms and without preamble pushed me to the ground. He pinned me with his body and lay on top, and I was again amazed by how light his frame was.
“What’re you doing?” I stammered.
This is for your protection Kate. Close your eyes.
Then I could hear it, a high-pitched crescendo whine.
“What is it?” I demanded. “Tell me!”
He shook his head slowly.
Something different.
Then the ground shook and there was another earth shattering explosion and all the lights went out. I felt Adam’s body pressing into mine, as a wave of pressure blasted through the corridor. I closed my eyes and felt my ears pop. A pulse, like a reverb or a subwoofer in a cinema, travelled through my muscles and bones as if through jelly. My heart jumped in my chest and fluttered irregularly.
As quickly as it had appeared, the feeling disappeared.
Adam collapsed against me, his limbs folding and crumpling. His head rested on my chest, and his eyes closed. I felt hands grabbing at me and I was unceremoniously pulled out from under him. He rolled over onto his side, flaccid, unmoving. FBI agents surrounded him like ants overwhelming an injured spider, quickly locking handcuffs and starting to wrap him in some sort of straightjacket.
I leaned against the wall, supported by a couple of agents. Hubert was suddenly in my face. “Time to go,” he said, his expression grim.
I started to protest, but he shook his head and gave a look that brooked no dissent. I allowed myself to be led down the corridor and into the fire escape.
DAY 6
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
FBI Black Site, CA
I’d been hustled out of the destroyed SETI building and transported to a mobile hospital where I was soon given the all clear, medically speaking. Which was a bit counter-intuitive after being told I was apparently “lucky to be alive”. My leg still hurt, but the Vicodin was helping, and my cuts and scrapes had been cleaned and dressed. After a few hours I was allowed to shower and change into another set of clothes, not as upscale as Stillman’s, but I guess beggars can’t be choosers.
Another motorcade later and I was back on the Gulfstream, which had wheeled up almost immediately. I dozed fitfully for the few hours of the flight, courtesy of the hypnotic thrum of the engines, the Vicodin, and the cabin crew who left me alone. I’d asked where we were going and was told that it was “classified” and that Hubert would meet me at the other end. Before sleep, and with some persistent prodding, the FBI agent babysitting me reluctantly let me know how they’d finally gotten Adam.
An ebomb.
Lying twenty miles off shore, the USS Ronald Reagan had fired a cruise missile with a payload of an ‘explosively pumped flux compression generator’. The actual chemical explosive yield was minimal, but was focussed through a disc generator producing an intense magnetic field. The detonation compressed the magnetic flux and produced a shaped electromagnetic pulse. I’d questioned the agent about this, because I’d heard that EMP was a consequence of a nuclear explosion, but I was made to understand that Non-Nuclear EMPs (NNEMPs) were weapon-generated electromagnetic pulses without use of nuclear technology. The range was limited, but allowed finer target discrimination. The effective zone of the EMP delivered by the cruise missile was only two hundred yards so they’d targeted the missile at the front of the SETI building, limiting the structural damage, but blasting the immediate area with the EMP.
It had clearly worked. The EMP had disrupted all the electronic equipment within immediate vicinity, and had shut down whatever electronica ran Adam’s machine body. The agent also let me know that the EMP can damage physical objects such as buildings and aircraft structure
s due to the high energy levels.
He said this with a grin, followed up by, ”Let’s hope they killed the bastard.”
I chewed my nail and looked out of the window.
We were descending fast, at a much steeper rate than normal commercial jets. Nevertheless, the landing was surprisingly soft and within a few minutes of the taxi we were being directed through the doors of a large aircraft hanger. The sun was coming up, the long early morning shadows spidering through the fields and trees onto the airstrip. The temperature was already in the high 60s and no clouds were visible in the sky. The spring grass shone like it had it’s own gentle glow from within, and beyond the airstrip were fields of gold and green and rolling hills separated by run-down wooden fences and barbed wire. A couple of dilapidated flat-topped barns could be seen half a mile or so away, with similar barns on the nearest hills. I’d been told these appearances were calculated deceptions, and that inside each barn was a controller for state-of-the-art security equipment and electronic countermeasures.
With a hiss of hydraulics, the aircraft’s door rotated and I was helped out of the plane. I limped down the short steps and met Hubert at the bottom.
“Is he here?” I asked, trying not to allow the excitement I felt be palpable in my voice.
Hubert nodded. “He’s here. Under guard.”
“Alive?”
“We don’t know.” He looked back over his shoulder. “The EMP worked. Knocked out his systems. I guess inside he’s just a mass of circuit boards after all.”
I hurried to keep up. “How did you get him here?”
“Well, we put him in a straightjacket, as many chains and cables that we could find, and airlifted him on the fastest jet I could requisition.”
“But you said you don’t know if he’s alive or dead?” I persisted.
Hubert gave me a sideways glance. “That’s right. The doctors have examined him, but they don’t know what they’re dealing with. Or what they’re supposed to be looking for.”
We were walking towards an elevator door set against the far wall, a huge rectangular aperture twenty-four feet wide and eight feet high. The aircraft hanger was so large that inside it felt like it had its own climate. The cool morning breeze moved freely from front to back and the sunlight cascaded from windows onto endless concrete. There was a faint whiff of kerosene in the air, and smudged markings could be seen on the ground indicating where dozens of aircraft had once stood and been maintained.
“What’s the purpose of this place?” I said, looking around.
“This is an FBI Black Site. A place where certain types of research and evaluation of technology is done out of sight and away from the public eye. We’ve many of these dotted around the world.” He abruptly stopped and turned to face me, his eyes probing mine. “Remember Kate, you’ve taken the oath. You’re to regard yourself as a government employee. National Security binds you, and anything you see or hear is classified. Understand?”
I pulled a face. “You can’t seriously keep him a secret for much longer. Didn’t you hear what I said about there beings thousands of copies? Hundreds of thousands?”
“We can keep it a secret until I say otherwise,” he replied stiffly.
An agent approached us and leaned to speak into Hubert’s ear. He nodded after a few seconds and said, “Okay, then it’s done.”
“What’s done?” I said.
His face was impassive, but there was frustration coming off him in waves. His lips curled downwards. “The President’s coming. He wants to meet our friend.”
“Well that’s good isn’t it?” I said. “Take me to your leader, and all.”
Hubert shook his head. “Definitely not. I’ve been trying to put the President off, stating security issues, but he’s an asshole. He doesn’t appreciate the danger. I explained that we know almost next to nothing about the alien, or the machine, and that all our experience confirms they’re hostile. But he said he can ‘negotiate with anyone’. And he is the President.”
I bit back a reply as the elevator doors cranked sideways, opening like intertwined fingers, and we all got in. Hubert punched a keypad on the wall and the doors closed ponderously behind us. There was a momentary lurch as we started to descend.
“The portal will be opening again this morning,” I said. “When’s the asshole arriving?”
Hubert looked grim. “Soon. We don’t have a lot of prep time.”
The elevator shuddered to a halt and we exited into a long grey corridor lit at five-yard intervals by yellowing halogen bulbs. Doors were present at regular intervals, sturdy windowless metal designs like you would find in a top security prison. We walked in silence and the corridor twisted right about thirty yards further ahead and opened directly into a brightly lit room containing a dozen or so desks with computer consoles and equipment, all manned by uniformed soldiers and FBI agents.
“Interagency co-operation,” smirked Hubert. “Who’d’ve thought it?”
We approached a rectangular blacked-out window flanked by two metal doors that were themselves guarded by heavily armed soldiers. Hubert pointed to the window and one of the soldiers punched a keypad and the one-way electronic mirror pixelated into life.
Behind the screen was Adam Benedict, sitting upright in what looked like a dentist’s chair but with his head slumped forward and eyes closed. He was wrapped in some kind of thick fabric and very solid-looking cables were attached to his hands and feet and bolted to the floor. Fussing around him were two white-coated figures with stethoscopes around their necks, so presumably medics. One was holding a syringe, the other a clipboard. Various pieces of medical equipment surrounded the chair and at the back of the room were six more soldiers holding serious-looking matt-black machine pistols.
Hubert gestured to the guard, who opened the door. We filed into the room, Hubert leading the way and me taking up the rear behind a couple of agents. We passed Stillman who was leaning on the wall by the door. She smiled at me but her eyes gave nothing away. The light was fairly dim and I could smell disinfectant. The two medics turned and stopped what they were doing. One of them, a tall bearded man with thinning grey hair and large round spectacles, introduced himself as Dr Stevens and shook hands all around. He nodded me a professional courtesy as I was introduced as a doctor. The other medic, a younger portly fellow, ignored us all and went back to his equipment.
“Sit rep?” asked Hubert.
Stevens fetched a clipboard. He flicked through a couple of pages, settling on the current entry. “Unfortunately we’ve not learnt anything new yet. He’s not regained consciousness - if that’s actually what this neurological state is.”
“Have you run an EEG?” I said. “We never had time to do that in Springs.”
Stevens nodded. “Yes, but we just can’t interpret it. There’re no recognisable patterns of brainwave activity. We can’t detect any electrical signals, but that doesn’t mean anything.”
“So the EMP could have killed him?” I said, a sinking feeling beginning in my stomach.
Stevens shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine.”
Hubert was staring transfixed at Adam’s face. He reached out and touched Adam’s eyelid, gently pulling it up. “It looks human doesn’t it, but there’s something not quite right about the features. It’s too perfect. I can’t see any imperfections or even asymmetry.”
Suddenly both of Adam’s eyes opened and his head jerked up. Hubert took an involuntary step backwards, as did everyone else except the soldiers at the back of the room who moved forwards bringing their guns to bear. The noise of guns being made ready echoed around us, loud and clear. An unmistakeable hint of intent. Adam took in the group with a slow lateral movement of his head and when his gaze alighted on me, he smiled.
“Hello Kate, it is good to see you again. I am glad that you survived.”
“Adam,” I stammered, “Is that you.”
There was a brief flicker of green phosphorescence before his eyes resumed their normal colour.
“Of course. Who were you expecting?”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
FBI Black Site, CA
He’d spoken out loud, and not directly into my head. I wondered why, and I was about to try and send a non-verbal message when he looked away and addressed Hubert.
“Director Hubert, congratulations on setting up this facility. The electronic countermeasures are quite impressive. I am unable to overcome them at this time.”
Hubert nodded solemnly. “I hope you understand that this is for our safety. And so that we can communicate without any, shall we say, unpleasantness?”
I winced. He sounded like a Bond villain.
Adam smiled while looking around the room, taking in the equipment, the soldiers, the medical personnel. “I have no intentions of harming anyone.”
“You’ll forgive me for finding that hard to believe,” murmured Stillman, folding her hands and keeping her distance at the back of the room.
Adam looked over at her. “I could easily remove these restraints, but if it makes you feel better I will stay as I am.”
“If you try to remove them,” said Hubert, scowling, “these soldiers have orders to shoot to kill. And we have another EMP device underneath this room.”
“You’ve shown your hand too early, Director Hubert.”
“Try it and see.”
Something didn’t seem right. I put an arm out towards Hubert and without taking my eyes off Adam I said, “Stop it. Both of you.”
